61. Cassiel
For a moment, all I can hear is ringing.
Screaming comes next. Shouting. The clash of steel. Magic crackles through the air.
They’re here.
Nubaia has begun her attack.
I push myself up, coughing through the dust, heart already racing. Robin is barking like mad. I fight my way towards him, relaxing only a fraction when my fingers latch onto his fur.
“Saints,” I whisper, staring out at the courtyard through the hole where my window used to be.
This isn’t a skirmish. This is a full-scale onslaught.
The courtyard below has become a battlefield of fire and ruin.
Fey pour over the walls and through the shattered gates like a living storm, too many to count, their forms flashing through the smoke.
Some descend from the sky itself, winged and terrible, dropping like missiles from the clouds with spears of light in their hands, slamming into the stone hard enough to crack it beneath them.
Others ride currents of magic, suspended in the air as though gravity has forgotten them, hurling blasts of green flame and violet lightning down into the chaos.
Our knights retaliate as best they can. Steel flashes.
Arrows fly. Guards shout commands I can barely hear over the thunder of collapsing stone.
People rush forward with shields raised, only to be thrown back by an invisible force, bodies skidding across blood-slick cobbles.
Captain Fellwood drives his sword straight through the chest of a snarling fey soldier—only for the body to dissolve into glittering smoke.
An illusion. Beside him, another knight swings wildly at an enemy that vanishes before the blade can land, while the real attacker appears behind him with a grin like broken glass.
There are too many of them. Too many faces, too many shadows, too many copies moving where no copies should be.
Half the battlefield is deception. Knights slash through empty air, through phantoms made to distract and divide, while the true fey slip between them like knives.
Every time one falls, it seems like two more rise in its place.
“Sire!” comes a voice on the other side of the door. “Are you all right?”
The explosion has knocked my desk and chair against the wall. They’re wedged against the panelling.
“I’m all right,” I call back, checking myself over. Winded, wobbly, but unhurt. No breaks or open wounds.
Another explosion rocks the castle somewhere nearby. The floor trembles beneath my feet.
I glance towards the shattered wall—toward the open sky beyond. That might be my only way out.
I move quickly, climbing over broken stone, testing my footing as I edge toward the gap. It’s a long drop, but not impossible. Not if I—
A crash sounds from the corridor, followed by a very distinct thwack.
“Oh no, my lute!”
I freeze. That is not something I expected to hear in the middle of an assault. I turn back to the door, frowning, and cross the room again. I manage to move the chair and pull back the desk. The door’s still stuck fast, locked from the outside.
Another voice—familiar this time.
“Move—move—watch the—”
A scuffle. More shouting. I hammer against the door, shoving it with all my weight—
It gives way suddenly. Robin and I tumble out in the corridor.
The guard set to watch me is unconscious on the floor, and breathing hard beside him, a sword in one hand, is—
“Dain?”
He grins at me. “Hello.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you, of course.”
I turn to the person standing beside him, clutching the broken remains of a lute like a fallen comrade—
It’s the bard from the Rosey Duckling. Hyacinth, I think his name was.
What’s he doing here?
“…I’m sorry,” I say, because there are priorities, “is that—”
“My lute!” Hyacinth mourns, staring down at the cracked instrument. “She had character, you know—”
“You hit a man over the head with it,” Dain points out.
“Desperate times!”
I drag a hand down my face. “I’m sorry,” I say, still trying to process what I’m seeing, “You want to explain why there’s a bard in the corridor during an active siege? No offence,” I add, glancing at Hyacinth.
“None taken,” he says brightly, still cradling the remains of his lute.
“He’s part of my group of unlikely rebels,” Dain says, as if this explains everything.
I stare at him, waiting for the rest. Is this what my aunt meant about a rescue?
Dain exhales sharply. “Look, I know a lot of the knights don’t approve of what Alessandra’s planning—but they weren’t going to move against her. So… I went looking elsewhere.”
My brow furrows. “Elsewhere.”
“The Rosey Duckling,” Hyacinth supplies helpfully. “It was a very good place to start.”
Dain gestures vaguely. “It’s… friendlier to the fey. Or at least less inclined to immediately start stabbing them.”
“And you thought that was the place to recruit help?”
“It worked,” he says defensively. “We’ve got Hyacinth, Magda, and a few others holding the lower levels. Causing problems. Buying time.”
I stare at him.
“…you broke into a besieged castle with a bard—no offence—”
“None taken.”
“—and an innkeeper?”
“I mean, it wasn’t being besieged at the time…” Dain explains. “Our timing couldn’t be better—or worse—in that regard, but not everyone has the resources and intelligence that you do, Cass, and this is only part of the plan your aunt came up with.”
I cross my arms, ignoring the distant sound of another explosion. “What’s the rest?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “You are.”
I blink.
“If anyone knows what to do next, it’s you.”
For a moment, I just look at him and the chaos unfolding around us.
“Right,” I say. “Well. That’s either incredibly flattering or deeply concerning.”
“Bit of both,” Hyacinth says.
“Probably,” I agree.
Another tremor shakes the corridor. Dust drifts from the ceiling. I may not have a plan, but we don’t have time to be standing around chatting.
I straighten, scrambling back into my room, searching for weapons. There isn’t much—just my old pouch of sightsever and Wren’s dagger. All my other weapons are elsewhere.
They’ll have to do.
“First step,” I say, buckling on my belt.
Dain nods. “Which is?”
“We get my sister out of here.”
Dain swallows. “Good plan.”
We start to move. I’m not letting Ru get caught up in this, not like last time.
“Come on,” I call over my shoulder.
Behind me, I hear Hyacinth sigh mournfully. “…I really liked that lute.”
“Focus,” Dain snaps.
The corridors are already half-ruined. Smoke creeps along the ceilings, tapestries torn down, the distant roar of battle bleeding through stone. Every few steps, the castle shudders, like it’s trying to shake the war off its back and failing.
Hyacinth keeps pace surprisingly well.
“I’d just like to note,” he pants, clutching what remains of his lute like a club, “this is not what I expected when I agreed to help, and I am not exactly a fighter.”
Dain and I both ignore him. It’s mid afternoon, which means Ru is likely still in the school room.
Or was.
Please be safe, I pray. Please be all right.
“East wing,” I say. “Stay sharp.”
We turn a corner—
—and nearly collide with a pair of fey warriors.
Dain moves first, disarming one with a sharp strike to the wrist before knocking him flat. I take the other, driving him back into the wall, pinning him there.
“Stand down,” I snap. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
He doesn’t. He swings instead, sparks starting at his fingertips. I catch his arm, twist hard, and he crumples with a strangled gasp. I draw Wren’s dagger and smack the hilt into the back of his skull, letting him drop.
Dain has dispatched the second. Hyacinth looks on in mild horror.
“Move,” I tell them.
We don’t look back. We take the stairs two at a time, the sounds of fighting growing louder and then quieter again as we move deeper into the east wing. My pulse pounds in my throat. Every corridor feels too long, every second stretched thin with the possibility of being too late.
The school room door hangs half-open.
My stomach drops.
Inside, the room is in complete disarray. Chairs have been overturned, books lie scattered across the floor with torn pages fluttering in the draft from the broken window, and ink has spilled across the desk like blood. One of the shelves has collapsed entirely, slates and chalk crushed beneath it.
“Ru?” I call, my voice sharper than I intend.
For one terrible second, there is no answer.
Then, from beneath the tutor’s desk, a small voice says, “Cass?”
I cross the room in three strides.
She’s wedged herself beneath it, curled tight with her knees to her chest, dust in her hair and her eyes far too wide. Smart girl. Brave girl. Alive.
Relief hits so hard it nearly drops me to my knees.
I crouch, reaching for her. “Ru. Come here.”
“I thought—” Her voice wobbles. “There was shouting and Mistress Elowen told me to hide and not come out, and she said she was going to find help, but she didn’t come back and I thought—”
“You did exactly the right thing,” I say, gentler now. “You stayed hidden. I’m here.”
“Cassiel!”
She launches herself forward, nearly knocking the breath out of me. I catch her automatically, holding her tight for a fraction of a second before pulling back.
“Are you all right?” we both ask at the exact same time.
We take a second to share a weak laugh.
Her eyes flick past me, taking in Dain, Hyacinth, the chaos beyond.
“What’s happening?” she asks. “And who are you?”
“Oh, I’m Hyacinth, I’m a bard,” Hyacinth explains. “We don’t have anything to do with the siege. We just came to free your brother.”
“Nubaia has attacked,” I explain quickly.
Ru goes pale. She does not waste time asking for any further explanation. She straightens immediately.
“Then what are we doing?”
“Getting you out.”
Her expression hardens. “No.”
“Ru—”
“I’m not running while everyone else—”
“You are not staying in the middle of this,” I snap, sharper than I mean to.
She flinches.
I take a breath, forcing myself to rein it in.
“Please,” I say, quieter now. “Not this time.”
Something in my voice must reach her. She hesitates only for a second before nodding. “Fine,” she mutters. “But I’m not useless.”
“I wouldn’t dream of suggesting it.”
We move again. I snatch a sword from a fallen guard and find a dagger to give to Ru, just so she can feel safer. I doubt it will be much use against the fey, but she takes it anyway.
Robin stays close to my side, low growl rumbling in his chest whenever we pass too near danger. The route to the tunnels is worse. We avoid most of it—ducking through side passages, cutting across servants’ corridors—but it’s impossible to avoid entirely.
At one point, a blast of magic tears through a nearby hall, heat licking down the passage toward us. I grab Ru’s arm, pulling her into an alcove as flames soar down the stone.
They stop when Dain plunges his sword into the spell-caster’s throat.
I shield Ru from it as best I can, but she still sees far more than she should.
“I’m all right,” she says when I turn towards her, as if she can sense my thoughts.
I waste no more time talking. We’re almost at the dungeon entrance.
Hyacinth stays behind at the corridor junction, posting himself like an unlikely sentinel.
“I’ll hold anyone off,” he says, lifting his broken lute. “Or at least inconvenience them greatly.”
“Try not to die,” Dain says.
“No promises, but if I do perish in this endeavour, bury me with my lute, and please compose a ballad in my honour.”
Despite everything going on around us, I take a second—just one—to smile at this relative stranger.
“What is it?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I reply. “It’s just… I can see why my brother liked you.”
His expression shifts into something soft and slightly sad, but there’s no time to linger on it.
“Go,” he says quietly.
We say nothing else. Dain opens the door and we descend into the dungeons, the stale, damp air rushing up to meet us. The narrow stone stairs spiral downward, disappearing into darkness.
Ru hesitates beside me.
“I hate this already,” she mutters.
“Good,” I say, taking the first step. “It means your instincts are working.”
The stairs are slick beneath our boots, worn smooth by years of passage. Water drips somewhere below, steady and hollow, echoing through the dark like a clock counting down.
Robin presses close enough that I can feel his fur against my hand.
Behind us, somewhere far above, the palace groans with battle, the steel and magic splitting the air apart. Down here, it feels like another world. Even breathing sounds too loud.
I grip my sword tighter.
We pass the cells, then descend through the lower corridors and through the concealed entrance.
At the bottom, the tunnel stretches long and narrow, carved from old stone and half-claimed by roots forcing their way through the ceiling.
The air smells of earth and wet moss. Dain takes the lead, blade drawn, while I keep Ru close between us.
“Almost there,” he mutters.
We move quickly, boots splashing through shallow water, every shadow seeming to shift when I look too long. The tunnel bends once, then again.
Too quiet.
Robin’s growl starts low.
We round the final corner—and stop.
A fey woman stands across the tunnel’s end, silhouetted by pale light from the forest beyond. Four human guards lie dead at her feet, blood dark against the stone.
She has long, silvery hair, bound in a braid not unlike Wren’s. A staff rests lightly in one hand, as though she has all the time in the world.
Her eyes are milk-white.
Moira. Wren’s former mentor.
The fey who blinded me.